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Source:Cincinnati LoC signing, 30 October 1994 - report by Matthew Hunter
Lord of Chaos signing tour, Cincinnati 30 October 1994 - report by Matthew Hunter The signing in Cincinatti was actually quite successful -- very little crowd, which made me happy (lots of time to get to know The Creator) and him happy (150+ people showed up in Lexington the day or so before, which he said was draining). The hat and cane were there... The bookstore was also passing out the poster-size maps to the first couple people who showed up... I was late, and didn't get one, but they said they'd order one... :) Here's what I got out of him: He is aware of us, and the Bela discussion. We had a rather long convoluted discussion about Bela and the Darkfriend social, which seemed to leave everyone else clueless, when I identified myself as a net.jordanite... We complain about the Sweet covers. He complains about the German covers. (Well, not much. But one in particular had a naked woman wearing pearls holding back an army with a wave of her hand (The Great Hunt) and "I had _no_ idea where they got that one.") You don't want to hear about his British agent. He mentioned "Never trust anyone with power who isn't uncomfortable with it" as being related to Rand's leaving so many sa'angreals in safe places... He mentioned Hyperion... he loved the book until he read the ending. "There was no ending, no resolution." At that point, he threw the book across the room and never got around to reading Hyperion II. About Aes Sedai and their oaths: "Rand is in control, one way or the other -- depending on exact oaths, who was Black Ajah, and how willing they are to hold to those oaths." Given that most were from Arafel, where they have 'strange ideas about honor', and the first clause in that sentence, I'd say that the non-BA AS who swore will be inclined to support him (mostly) honestly. About skill comparisons between main character swordsmen: "Read the book." About the forms used: I was curious, so I asked if he had studied the swordfighting arts or just researched. It's research, and the forms come from Japanese swordfighting and some European fencing, before the advent of well-designed and well-made guns made swords obsolete. He mentioned one book in particular, but I can't remember the title... :( Newsflash! The covers aren't as bad as we thought they were. The 'extra' character in TEotW really was in the book, but was cut out later, because he had too little to do. His parts were distributed out to the other characters, but they never got around to cutting him from the cover. Physics/Math background and how it affected his writing: -only marginally useful -structure -Schrodinger's Cat and other Quantum Physics stuff helps with conceptualization of fantasy structure. His Editor (also his wife) said that the physics and math was more important than he gave it credit for. ;) I asked if he had anything he wanted to pass on to the net as a whole, and he responded, "50% of the FAQ (pre-tFoH) is wrong." He wants a copy of the latest FAQ, which I presume can wait until we can incorporate the primary points from LoC into it. PNH, can we send that through you or through some other medium? He likes Mexican food and treats his driver well. ;) http://groups.google.com/group/rec.arts.sf.written.robert-jordan/msg/f543eaa368075232 Category:Reports from Fans